


where the shadows lay

by Nadin



Category: Wonder Woman (2017), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Reunions, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 14:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15632139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nadin/pseuds/Nadin
Summary: WonderTrev Love Week 2018Day 6 - Present dayThe city outside the floor-to-ceiling window was glimmering like a myriad of diamonds, glinting and winking at Steve as he stared at the expanse of Gotham far below. The year was 2018, yet he was still wearing his German uniform and a heavy coat to keep him warm against the late November chill.





	where the shadows lay

**Author's Note:**

> I will never, ever get tired of this scenario! Never!

The city outside the floor-to-ceiling window was glimmering like a myriad of diamonds, glinting and winking at Steve as he stared at the expanse of Gotham from the top floor of—

What did they call it? Wayne Industries? His brows pulled together as he tried to sort through the information that had been poured onto him not half an hour ago, his mind still reeling, as it would be, Steve suspected, for a very long time.

 _Wayne Enterprises_ , the name popped up in his head, and his shoulders relaxed.

The room was half-dark; the only source of light was a reading lamp sitting on a massive desk, amidst scattered papers, illuminating a rectangular thing that had some sort of screen on it but it looked too small to be a piece of actual equipment, Steve thought. And what kind of device had only a screen but no keys? He decided not to touch anything just in case.

The whole place looked expensive but not kitschy, effortless wealth that didn’t need to try too hard.

The year was 2018 but Steve was still wearing his German uniform and a heavy coat to keep him warm against the late November chill. It smelled of smoke and dirt and death, and his stomach turned once more - this time from the memories of the last day of his life that he could remember rather than from being dragged through time and space and god only knew what by someone who called himself ‘the fastest man alive’. If he didn’t feel like he was about to throw up, his ears still ringing, he would have assumed that he was dreaming.

Then again, how could he have possibly dreamt up a city he had never visited and a story this insane?

How could he have dreamt up _anything_ if he was supposed to be dead?

Steve shook his head, pushing the thought away.

Outside the door, he could hear Diana – _his_ Diana – arguing with two men, their voices raised but the thick walls keeping him from hearing what they were saying. The cheery Barry, the one who ran through time to pull Steve out of the airplane a moment before it went up in flames, or so they told him, and someone named Bruce who pressed his lips and furrowed his brows the moment he walked into the room about an hour before and saw Steve.

Like he knew him but didn’t want to.  

Steve was yet to understand what any of this had to do with him, but for now, he simply wanted Diana to come back. For a while, he contemplated walking out of the door and following the heated conversation, but it didn’t sound like something that should be interrupted. It might have been about him, but the idea of being there felt like an intrusion. And so he lingered by the window, studying the world as he had never seen it stretching before him and thinking that this was the craziest thing to ever happen to him.

And Christ, he had met the _Amazons_. He had seen the God of War. Shouldn’t it be impossible to top that?

Lost in thought, transfixed by the flickering lights of the city far below him, he missed the moment when the voices had quieted down. Didn’t notice the door opening behind him, either. Not until a familiar voice called his name.

“Steve.”

Startled, he turned around, his heartbeat spiking – the years at war still too alive in his blood, his senses on edge. It might have been a whole century for them all, but for him, it had only been one day.  

Diana was standing the doorway, her hand on the knob.

His breath caught in his throat again, but now for an entirely different reason. She was as beautiful as he remembered, ethereal even. With the shadows crowded around her, she looked she could blend into the darkness. Her hair was pulled back and tied into a knot at the nape on her neck. She was wearing a plain long-sleeved shirt and black pants – could women wear pants now? He wasn’t surprised. Well, not as much as about everything else.

Still, it didn’t stop him from staring.

“Steve?”

He jerked his gaze up when he realized that he was gawking unashamedly at her legs, heat rising up his face. Which was dumb, really. He had seen her leg before. Had them wrapped around—

“Hey,” he breathed, his voice hoarse.

She was studying him, her head tilted slightly to her shoulder, her eyes wary. Not scared or confused, but it was like she was almost expecting him to disintegrate right before her. Maybe was did, Steve thought absently. Maybe he was going to.

What if he was going to?

“Are you alright?” Diana asked, and he had to bite back a laugh.

A sad smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, not touching his eyes. “I don’t think there’s a one-word answer to that,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

His eyes moved around the office one more, without focusing on anything in particular. There was a couch by the wall and a filing cabinet in the corner. A heavy safe and a liquor cart. It all looked so _normal_.

She nodded. “This must be confusing,” Diana offered, her words careful and measured.

“Confusing in an understatement,” Steve said.

There was too much space between them.

He wanted to cross it and hold her face between his hands again, like he did when he had first popped up here, dizzy for a moment before his gaze fixed on her. Her eyes filled with tears when he touched her, her fingers curling over his wrists and holding on to him so tight that she probably left bruises on his skin. He didn’t mind. A very happy Barry was beaming at them like a thousand-watt lightbulb, and Bruce glared daggers at them from the opposite corner of the room for the reason Steve couldn’t understand, but he didn’t care. Diana was all that mattered.

Next, her hands were replaced by the Lasso, a familiar burning spreading over his arms and words pouring out of him as he watched overwhelming relief wash over her face, her shoulders going slack with every fact he had tossed at her, scant as they were - a proof that he was the real deal. Until she had her hand pressed to her mouth and his chest was too tight to speak.

That was when Bruce, whoever he was, asked if he could have a word with her and Barry, leaving Steve alone here long enough for him to start questioning his sanity.

He didn’t move though, choosing to watch her from his spot near the window, so high above the city that it was giving him vertigo, his mind refusing to accept the reality of what was happening and his heart rejecting the possibility of this being nothing but an illusion.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly, her expression apologetic. “I didn’t mean to leave you, not when—” she took a steadying breath. “It could have waited.”

Steve shook his head. “It seemed… intense.” His gaze darted for a moment past her shoulder.

Diana bit her lip. “Don’t worry about it. It’s nothing.”

He could argue because it very obviously was not nothing. If anything it sounded very much like _something_ , but his brain was a few moments away from going into an overload mode, and maybe they could come back to the screaming match that had just happened between and Amazon, a guy who could run through time and someone whose problem with him Steve didn’t even understand some other time.

She was the one to walk over to him, stopping before him, close enough for Steve to catch a whiff of her floral perfume and something that was and always had been Diana. His mouth went dry and his pulse stuttered as he watched her watch him with the same stunned disbelief that he suspected was written all over his own face. She ran her hand over the collar of his coat as if in need for reassurance, her brows knitting together at the sight of German insignia peeking from beneath it.

She reached for his hand and weaved her fingers through his. He liked the way it felt, so natural – like they had done just that every day for a century. “Come with me,” she whispered, raising her gaze.

Steve nodded. And then nodded again. There wasn’t a place on Earth where he wouldn’t follow her.

\---

The headlights of Diana’s car swept over the dark water of the lake when she pulled up in front of a house sitting on the banks of it, large and ominous. Steve followed her out of the vehicle that, to him, looked like something from a futuristic novel, no less, and up the path toward the door, a lone lamp lit up above it.

His gaze moved around, taking in a wall of trees around the lake and the dark windows. Was everything built of glass in the 21st century, he wondered absently but didn’t have a chance to contemplate it because Diana kept walking with purpose and easy familiarity, and he hurried up to keep up with her.

The door opened silently, semi-lit hallways stretching before them.

“Do you live here?” Steve asked, stepping inside after her.

“No,” she turned to him. “Bruce does.”

_Bruce does._

He skidded to a halt, a cold pit opening in his stomach as he froze in the middle of the hallway, the house around him so quiet it felt like a pressure on his eardrums. His heart constricted in his chest. That would explain it, he thought as he struggled to find his breath again. That would explain why the other man found his sudden reappearance less than pleasing, why he would get mad at that Barry guy for saving him.

Back then, caught in the moment, Steve was too happy to see her to even consider the reality of her having long moved on. It had been a century, for heaven’s sake. He didn’t—he _wouldn’t_ have expected her to mourn him for that long, to be alone when she deserved to be adored and cherished and loved. He would never have wanted loneliness for her, not ever. Not because of him.  

Which left him… where exactly? A stranger in a strange land—

His throat closed up.

“Steve?” Diana turned around when she realized that he was no longer following her, two faint lines appearing between her brows when she frowned a little. “What’s wrong?”

_What isn’t?_

He looked around him, taking note of the house he could never have ever imagined, no matter how hard he might try, and thought, _I don’t belong here_.

The cold wind blowing from the door that he didn’t bother to close made him shiver.

“Are you—you and Bruce--” he started and stopped when she walked back to him, not sure how to finish the question, the mental image alone enough to make him not want to.

Diana in another man’s arms, saying his name in the same breathy whisper that she said Steve’s so recently and yet so long ago. Everything inside of him clenched, his chest growing so tight that he couldn’t inhale properly, his lungs burning. What was the point of coming here at all if he couldn’t be with her?

Her confusion deepened.

Did she even know what the hell he was talking about?

A moment passed, and a small smile touched Diana’s lips, her frown smoothing out. She shook her head. “No.”

“Because he didn’t seem very happy to see me,” Steve added, sheepish.

“It wasn’t about you,” she said. “There could have been… consequences to doing what Barry did. Bruce was worried about that.”

“Were there?” He pressed.

“No,” Diana promised.

Eyeing her, he cleared his throat. “Then why are we here? Why can’t we go to—to your house?”

The corners of her mouth curled upward. “Because I live in Paris.”

Steve blinked. “Oh.”

Paris… Like, Paris in France? Or Paris, Idaho?

“Then what…” He started again.

“I know you have questions,” she stopped him gently, taking his hand. He exhaled slowly, calmed instantly by her touch. “And I will answer them all, I promise. But let’s get you settled first, yes?” And added when he opened his mouth to protest, “I’m not going anywhere, Steve. And neither do you.”

This time, he followed her without another word.

They walked past the kitchen and the sitting room, more electronics that he couldn’t quite place staring back at him, lit up by dim lamps running along the perimeter of the ceiling as he wondered if that was how everyone lived now, in glass houses in the woods. He was tempted to pause and have a closer look but Diana’s hand in his kept him focused.

At the end of the hallway, she pushed another door open, and they stepped into a room with a large bed taking up most of its space and a glass wall overlooking dark waters of the lake.

“You need to have some rest,” Diana said, letting go of him and walking over to the window to close the curtains against the moonlight that was flooding the room with its eerie pale glow. “You must be exhausted.”

“I’m not tired,” Steve began, following her.

“Yes, you are,” she pressed, glancing at him. “I know exactly where you just came from--”

“Then surely you can understand—” There was urgency in his voice, bordering on panic, and he realized with a start that he was, in fact, expecting all of this to turn to ashes before his eyes.

She turned to him and lifted her hand, placing it over his chest, right where his heart was beating. And boy, was it beating fast.

“I will be here in the morning, Steve. I swear.”

He kept watching her. There was something about the way she was saying his name, a slight lilt in her voice that made him want to keep hearing it forever.

“Do you trust me?” She asked when he said nothing. Did nothing.

He swallowed and covered her hand with his.

“Yes.”

 _Always_.

“Then trust me on this.” A pause. “Please.”

Steve opened his mouth and closed it again, the fatigue of the past several years – _his_ years, those of the war and chaos – pressing down on him. So much so that he could barely stand it.

He nodded, and Diana’s features relaxed.

“Are you—would you like to have something to eat first, maybe?” She offered.

He shook his head, taking in the space around them once more. That damned bed. The memory of the previous night flared up in his mind, bright and vivid. Of Diana in his arms and their bodies pressed together skin to skin and the reverence in his voice as he whispered confessions and promises, desperate to slow down the time. Desire rose in his belly, unsurprising but unbidden nonetheless, and he struggled to tamp it down.

“No,” he said quietly. “I’m not hungry.”

Diana hesitated for a second, studying him, but didn’t press.

“Alright then.” She smiled that lovely smile of hers that he loved so. Her gaze drifted past him. “There is a bathroom over there,” she pointed at the door in the corner that Steve hadn’t noticed at first.

So much for being a spy.

“That would be good,” he echoed.

Diana’s thumb ran over the back of his hand. “Would you like me to…”

A corner of Steve’s mouth lifted. “I think I’ll manage.”

She hesitated but didn’t object. “I’ll bring you fresh towels.”

The bathroom was spacious, with a tub sitting against the wall across from the door and a glass shower cubicle tucked into a corner. Everything was clean and new and shiny. Steve tried to remember when was the last time he had a decent shower that was actually warm. The last time he was warm, period. It felt like the chill of the war seeped into his very bones and found home there.

He turned around and found himself staring at his reflection in the mirror above the sink, a haunted stranger looking back at him, as out of place in the stolen German uniform and dirty coat as he felt in this century.

He looked away and walked purposely to the bathtub. The shower with its controls looked like something he didn’t want to tackle just yet, but surely he could draw himself a bath.

The water felt divine, almost scalding-hot when he lowered down and it wrapped around his body, nearly steaming, just the way Steve wanted. For a long while, he simply sat there, marvelling in the sensation of no longer feeling like his toes were about to fall off. After being deprived of basic comforts for so long, a hot bath felt like an unbelievable luxury.

A quick rap on the door a few minutes later made him snap his head up, his heart stuttering momentarily, alarmed. It opened a crack, and then some more.

Diana stepped inside. “I’m going to leave this here.” She placed fresh towels and what looked like clothes to replace those that he left in a heap on the floor on the marble counter near the sink and smoothed her palm over them.

Steve cleared his throat. “Thank you.”

He thought she was going to leave straight away, but she raised her eyes to meet his, and he felt something warm unfurl inside of him that had nothing to do with the comfort and relief of being able to wash god only knew what off of his body at last.  

“Those are Bruce’s clothes,” she explained, her voice apologetic. “We will get something for you tomorrow.”

“Sounds good,” he said, barely registering her words.

“I don’t think any of mine will fit,” she added, and he chuckled under his breath.

Her smile softened, and though her eyes never left his face, he couldn’t help but feel exposed to his very soul before her. Well, technically he was. And technically, it wasn’t the first time. She might have been wearing pants and close-fitting blouses now and driving cars that Steve couldn’t even begin to understand yet, but she was still the same Diana whose body he knew every inch of, who fell asleep and woke up in his arms, their legs tangled together. Who whispered things to him in a tongue so old she might be the only one who still remembered it. Who he loved so fiercely that it frightened and delighted him in equal measure.

Steve took a breath, feeling his lungs expand. And then another one, an odd sense of calmness settling over him. Still his Diana.

Oblivious to his thoughts, she pointed to the shelf behind him.

“These are mine,” she said, and he turned around to find a neat row of bottles lining the wall. “You are welcome to use whatever you need, provided you don’t mind smelling like me.”

He didn’t. This was seriously the last thing he was opposed to, Steve decided. When he looked at Diana again, her lips were pressed together around a smile. He wished she’d come closer, wished he could drag her into the bathtub with him and kiss her until she forgot her name and the past hundred years that she had to spend without him. Wished they could start over.

He did neither of those things, but the thought of her waiting for him on the side of the door that she closed behind her when she left was a good enough incentive for him to cut his bathing as short as possible.

When Steve emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of sweet-smelling steam, unsure of how he felt about wearing another man’s clothes, Diana was standing by the chest of drawers, her fingers moving over what the small plastic thing that he had already learned was her phone - although he had yet to understand what exactly she was doing with it that didn’t involve using it as, well, a phone. Her hair was down, dark waves spilling over her shoulders, and Steve’s fingers itched to run through it.

She looked up, catching the moment out of the corner of her eye, and set her phone down. He reminded himself to tell her that he wasn’t sure what to do with his old clothes, but the words died on his tongue when walked over to him, stopping before him, close enough for him to notice a dusting of freckles over her nose even in the dim light of the bedside lamp.

She lifted her hand and pushed her fingers through his damp hair, smoothing it down, her eyes moving slowly over the planes of his face.

“I’m sorry, Diana,” the words fell from Steve’s lips before he knew he was saying them out loud.

Her gaze found her. “For what?”

“I didn’t want to—the plane, it wasn’t the plan.” His throat went dry. “We were running out of time…”

He was babbling, unsure where he was going with that, exactly. But she understood.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Diana whispered, shaking her head.

“I didn’t mean to leave you alone.”

“You’re here now,” she breathed.

His hand curled over her hip, pulling her closer still, breathing her in, intoxicated by her presence as his other hand buried into a mass of her hair, fingers tunnelling through thick coils the way they did when they were making love. She leaned into his touch, her cheek soft against his calloused palm.

“I missed you,” she whispered, the sound of her voice barely audible over the thudding of his heart.

“Will you stay with me tonight?” He asked quietly, resting his forehead against hers.

“If you want me too.”

 _If?_ If Steve could think straight, he would have laughed at the absurdity of her implication. As if there was a scenario in which he wouldn’t want that. As it was, however, all he could do was take a shuddered breath.

“Yes.”

There were questions he wanted to ask, words he wanted to say, but one, or maybe both of them moved before he had a chance to do anything else. His mouth brushed against hers, tentative at first, until Diana tilted her head and kissed him back, her hand sliding to rest on the back of her neck.

“I missed you, too,” Steve whispered against her lips, which, admittedly, didn’t bear the same weight as her confession, but he did, desperately so. Maybe he didn’t miss her for a century, but he could feel the heaviness of it pouring out of her, turning her pain into his own.

“Come with me,” she murmured, weaving her fingers through his, and he didn’t have it in him to argue.

He followed her to the bed, the carpet soft beneath his bare feet, and watched her pull the blankets off, crisp sheets underneath. Steve climbed under the covers and Diana slid in after him, moving into his arms without hesitation. Nestled into him, her head tucked under his chin, she closed her fingers around a fistful of his – _Bruce’s_ – shirt like she didn’t trust him not to leave again. He felt her let out a long breath, the weight and warmth of her body a much-needed solace.

“Can I ask you something?” He whispered, his hand running idly through her hair.

“Anything,” she said into his collarbone.  

“Did you ask him to do it? Your friend…. Barry, was it? Did you ask him to bring me back?”

There was a pause before she spoke. “No. I didn’t even know he could do it.”

“Then why…” Steve trailed off.

“I think he saw that something was missing,” she murmured.

“Remind me to thank him later,” he said softly, turning to press a kiss to her hairline.

A soft chuckle bubbled up in Diana’s chest, making him smile. “I’m sure _he_ will remind you.”

Wired after everything that had happened, Steve was certain that he wouldn’t be able to sleep, but her embrace and the quiet of the night around them were almost too much to bear. Before he knew it, his eyelids grew heavy, the world around him slowly fading at the edges.

“I love you.” Diana’s voice was but a whoosh of breath, breaking through the fog gathering in his head. “I never got to tell you that.”

He wanted to say something, wanted to say it back, but his mind slipped away before he could.

\---

Steve woke up with a start to the grey pre-dawn light streaming into the room through a floor-to-ceiling window, a dream he could no longer remember clinging to his brain like a cobweb. Whatever it was that jolted him awake – he didn’t want to remember.

His eyes roamed over the ceiling, dropping down to the dresser by the door and a chair sitting next to it, as he tried to remember--

“Steve?” Diana stirred against him, lifting her head off his chest.

He swallowed and ran his hand over his face, a shuddered breath stuttered out of his chest.

“I thought I’d dreamt you up,” Steve said, his voice low and groggy. “I thought I was--”

Dead. He thought he was dead.

He _was_ dead. To her, he had been dead for a hundred years. A hundred year full of things he wasn’t aware of. A hundred years of her life he had not been a part of. He didn’t know how to wrap his mind around that, panic rising in his chest whenever he tried to imagine what it was like for her. If she was worried, scared, lonely, misunderstood.

He had no right to bring her to his world and leave her behind to fend for herself without so much as a proper goodbye.

Diana’s eyes were moving over his features in the faint light, the lines of her face blurred and out of focus, softened by the shadows. There were so many things that Steve wanted to know, so many things he needed to understand. The relief that he felt last night over knowing that she still remembered him, that she loved him – did she really say it or did it dream it up as well? – was replaced by the fear that he no longer fit. That she belonged to his world more than he did.

Diana lifted her hand, her fingertips skimming lightly over his cheek, and he stilled under her touch, his body responding to it the same way it did not three days ago when she smoothed her palms over the plane of his chest, tracing the lines of his muscles as she got familiar with his body, when his mouth trailed over every inch of her skin he wanted to kiss.

He wondered if she remembered that, too.

His gaze drifted down to the bow of her mouth, and he was suddenly very aware of every place on his body that was touching hers.

“You’re safe,” Diana murmured, her hand cupped over his cheek. “It is over.”

He wanted to believe her. Wanted to ask her if she really said what he thought she said before he had drifted off. Wanted to never stop hearing those words falling from her lips.

Steve reached over to touch her hair, to tuck a strand behind her ear, the back of his fingers stroking her cheek. He didn’t know which one of them closed what little space was still left between them but one moment she was watching him in silence, and then next her mouth was pressed to his, kissing him the way she kissed him last night. The way she kissed him in Veld. Her hand slid into his hair, lean fingers gripping it and holding him here she wanted him to be.

And he kissed her back, trying to pour the things he didn’t quite know how to put into words yet into his touch. Everything they were robbed of, the life he had managed to create in his mind when she slept in his arms that was taken away from him. She was his armour and his courage and his hope, making him whole without knowing she was doing so and he wanted to thank her for it, wanted to give her the world.

The shift between reassurance and love was nearly palpable, as electric as a spark. One moment there was an almost hesitant softness to her touch, and then suddenly her fingers were moving over him with purpose, igniting the fire inside of him each time they skimmed over his skin where his shirt inched up, exposing his stomach.

“Diana…” Steve murmured, when she broke away, her mouth moving along his jaw, her breath heavy against his throat.

“I need you,” she whispered, and his pulse tripped over itself in response. “I missed you, Steve. Missed you terribly. Every day, every moment...”

Desire drilled down his spine, tightening in his belly. He drew back, searching her face, and she nodded. And then nodded again with urgency that all but undid him and pulled away to slip her shirt off over her head, tossing it aside. Steve’s eyes widened, drinking her up, his mouth dry as a desert. With a waterfall of black hair cascading down her shoulders and over thin lace of her underwear clinging close to her body, she was so beautiful he couldn’t think straight.

She leaned down, her mouth finding his again. There was a nearly desperate panic to her touch, like she was scared that he might disappear, like if they took another moment, if they allowed themselves to pause, the world might fall apart around them.

Steve gathered her to him, hands sliding along her arms, roaming over the expanse of her back, her ribs, her stomach. He shifted to allow her to tug his shirt off and discard it along with hers, his awareness dimming by the moment, the whole universe zeroed in on the sensation of her presence.

“Do you really want this?” He asked, his voice raw and cracking as his mouth moved along the column of his neck. He rolled them over, trapping her beneath the weight of his body, his breathing ragged a short, catching in his throat every time she touched him.

She turned, nuzzling into his cheek. “We have done it before, Steve.”

He paused, hovering over her. “It’s been a while.” And clarified, when she arched her eyebrow, “For you.”

“I want you,” Diana murmured, framing his face with her hands, her thumb stroking his cheekbone. “How can I not?”

Relief flooded, molten desire running in his veins, so consuming it made him ache. What was he doing trying to change her mind he had no idea.

The rest of their clothes came off in a blur. There was no hesitation to Diana anymore, no uncertainty when she guided him where she wanted to be touched, her voice in his ear and her quiet gasp when Steve pushed inside of her spinning him away.

He kissed her, sloppy and breathless, swallowing her quiet, _Don’t stop_. Her hips snapped up, urging him into motion, her mouth sliding along his shoulder, his, throat, his jaw. One hand curled over her wrist, Steve started to move, slowly at first, following her lead, tending to her needs. Cradled against her, he met her rock for rock, heat pooling at his core.

Diana tightened her hold on him, setting the pace, her fingers gripping his hair, sliding over his shoulders, his back, her body attuned to his like no time had passed at all. He felt her trying to tamp back her desperation, to hold on to the moment and make it last. His hand slid around her, resting on the small of her back as he slowed to a measured rock - until the pressure and tension was too much to bear. Until he was dizzy and drunk on her and the world was a carousel of colours. Until she arched beneath him, her nails digging into his flesh and tossing him right over the edge.

Chest heaving against his, Diana curled her hand over his cheek and kissed him slowly, languidly, and he let her, his body relaxing against hers.

Steve shifted his weight off of her so as not to crush her, but refused to move further away than that, his arm still circled around her, their sweat-slicked bodies glued together. He rested his cheek on her collar bone and allowed his eyes to drop shut as he waited for his breathing to even out, sated and happy and finally home.

“Last night, did you…” he started a while later, his words slurred.

“I love you,” Diana whispered, her finger moving slowly through his slightly damp hair as she held him against her, in no hurry to move away either. She pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, her breath warm against his skin. “I have always loved you, Steve.”

He fell asleep with their bodies wound tightly around one another, and this time, he didn’t dream.

\---

The future was insane. More insane than Steve could have ever think of, not even in a thousand years. At times, he couldn’t help but feel like he was drowning, swept away by the tidal pull of changes he never saw coming. He felt that the day after his return when he stood in the dressing room of a department store, a heap of clothes that Diana picked out for him to try on in his arms, the styles and patterns he didn’t understand. His own taste was long dead, by the looks of it.

When they came back from Themyscira in 1918, he didn’t fully grasp her bewilderment and surprise. To him, it felt like a minor adjustment at the time. How hard could it have been to change her clothes to something more conventional to his world? Boy, oh boy, was he wrong. He was feeling it in his bones now, his resistance slipping and tearing at the seams. That was why he said nothing as she went through several sections, pulling shirts and pants off the racks. That was why he settled without protest on those that Diana said suited him best.

He was going to get used to it. But it would take time.

He felt it even more a week later when he tried to figure out the workings of Diana’s computer that seemed so simple when she showed him the basics but that left him perplexed the moment she left him to his own devices.

He was still learning and he was going to keep on learning for her as well as for himself. This was his life now, chaotic and confusing, and Steve wouldn’t have it any other way. Not for anything in the world.

He had a phone of his own now, too. A small and slim rectangular thing, shiny and expensive-looking even though Diana promised him that it wasn’t – and after getting familiar with the cost of food and clothes, Steve decided not to push the subject for the sake of his own sanity. It required quite a bit of precision with the touch screen that seemed to not like an amateur like him very much.

On that phone, he already had a photo of her taken during lunch on the day she got it for him. To him, the phone felt mostly useless, the things that Barry calls ‘apps’ confusing and a bit terrifying, but Steve loved knowing that he could call Diana any time he wanted and she would answer and he would hear her voice. Loved feeling less lost when she wasn’t around.

Although it was only two weeks later, when they went to Paris – thanks to Bruce Wayne who apparently owned the Wayne _something-or-other_ building that Steve got acquainted with on his first day and who somehow managed to get all the papers and passport sorted for him, making Steve a legal and a very much alive citizen of the United States of America – that the reality of his new life had finally kicked in.

He was cooking breakfast on a Saturday morning, pancakes and omelettes, in Diana’s kitchen that was bathed in the morning sunlight, the air filled with the smells of food. A whisk in his hand, he was humming a tune under his breath, stupidly proud of himself for finally learning how to turn on Diana’s stove as he mixed the batter. The appliances were the easiest, Steve had to admit that much, if only because the principle remained the same as it was a hundred years ago. A fridge was a fridge, even if it looked fancier than anything Steve had ever seen before.

He didn’t notice Diana appearing in the kitchen until she wrapped her arms around him from behind and pressed a kiss to his shoulder.

“You’re up early,” she murmured into his skin, her voice thick with sleep.

Steve smiled, still mindful of his task at hand. “You’re sleeping late,” he countered.

She nuzzled into the side of his neck. “And whose fault is that?”

He let out a short laugh. “Guilty and not sorry in the slightest,” he said, turning his head to peck her on the temple. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” Diana admitted, peeking over his shoulder.

Which was not surprising, perhaps, all things considered.

Steve’s self-indulgent grin grew wider, the memories of the previous night, and quite a few before that flooding his mind with no obstruction on his part.

“Good,” he echoed. “Five more minutes.”

“Should I go get the paper?” Diana murmured, pressing her lips to his skin again.

He glanced at her over his shoulder, confused. “Do we need it?”

“Aren’t you supposed to read a newspaper over breakfast?” She arched a pointed eyebrow at him, trying very hard to keep her face straight even though her laughing eyes were betraying her.

 _Veld_.

In the light of the most recent events, their conversation in the snow-dusted village and the things that he wished for back then slipped his mind.

He remembered it all now.

And this was when it hit him. This was his life now. This was his home and his woman who loved him as much as he loved her. This was his dream that turned into something better than anything he ever imagined for himself. This was everything he ever wanted, and more.

Steve left the whisk in the bowl and turned off the stove before turning around to face Diana properly, taking note of how much better she looked wearing one of his shirts than any of her own clothes, a smile turning the corners of his mouth upwards. He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb stroking her cheek.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he said, moving closer until there was no air left between them. “There will still be news tomorrow.” 

**Author's Note:**

> This was a bit long, hope you don't mind :) 
> 
> They have no right to be so adorable!


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